Racing and Bluestocking Tits?

I confess I thought the ‘silly season’ referred to a paucity of sense in the news during Parliament’s summer recess. The absence of government allowing trivia and frivolity to take the place of more serious journalistic reportage.

Whilst not an honourable member, I have just returned from a brief sojourn elsewhere to find that breasts seem more de rigeur than usual. Tatler (May 2013) appear to have landed themselves in some hot water for their feature whereby various personages have had their mammaries placed centre-stage. This without any permission so we now have Claire Balding’s ‘racing tits’ and Victoria Coren’s ‘bluestocking tits’ (no, me neither). Alliteration is represented with the “no to Titler at Tatler” Facebook page helping to maintain column inches.

More serious is the Hart-Davis piece in ES Magazine (10/5/13) that informs us of thigh sculpting (to replicate the supermodels’ gap between the upper thighs) and the ‘tiittoo’ (actually a neat contraction of nipple tattoo). Apparently we are in the midst of a vogue of women seeking both darkening and enlarging of their areolae. I say apparent, as despite a couple of decades of breast-focussed surgical practice, I have yet to encounter such a request. On the other hand, I have seen numerous women with oversized areolae that wish reduction. Of course, traumatic scarring or post-mastectomy reconstruction is an entirely different matter, but tattoos should be considered to be a permanent and irreversible step.

Take one look at an ill-advised permanent eyebrow tattoo – for some reason they mostly seem to have been from a time that a rather blue and unnatural hue was common – and pose the question ‘will this be such a good idea in 5 or 10 years time?’ For those with an ecological bent, nature has provided a fairly reliable system of areolar enlarging and darkening: pregnancy. It also comes without complications, although the sleep-deprivation of the early months and years may not be universally welcomed.